Furthermore, the board made quite clear that it was up to the concluding parties to decide if the contract should apply for a shorter period than one year.The board also suggested that the master should be entitled to dismiss a negligent servant, without previously having used chastisement as a method of improvement. This change, however, was not intended to give the master an unlimited right to dismiss an undesirable worker. On the contrary, as before the issue had to be eventually decided by an official authority, which maintained the established principle of giving the servant some employment protection. Quite in line with this, the board stated that the master-servant relationship had a closer connection with the real family than the hiring of other workers.Thus it followed from “natural equity and justice” (Sw. billighet och rättvisa) that the master should take care of his servants if they were ill and thereby not be allowed to reduce their salary due to costs for medical care.211 The board also treatedother types of labour agreements, which could neither be characterised as master-servant relationships nor specified work. Such contracts should be legally valid but since they were so different, it would be meaningless to prescribe any rules, besides that if one party did not fulfil his obligations, the other party could sue him for damages. From our perspective the draft may seem to have been rather insignificant in this respect. Nevertheless, it pointed clearly in the direction of freedom of contract and private law.212 Thus, the members of the law committee of 1811, as well of the law drafting board of 1841, showed an ambivalence that was characteristic of the period. How to regulate the new types of relations that emerged in Swedish working life, how to balance p a r t 1 i i , c h a p t e r 3 100 211 Lagberedningen 1849, Förslag till Handels-Balk och Utsöknings-Balk m.m(The law drafting board of 1841, draft of 1849,The Book on Commerce etc.), Stockholm1850, Handelsbalken (The Book on Commerce) Ch. 11 sections 3, 23; Motiv (Reasons), pp. 30, 39-40, 42-44, 105-106. 212 Lagberedningen, Förslag till Handels-Balk och Utsöknings-Balk m.m. (The law drafting board of 1841, Draft of 1849,The Book on Commerce, etc.) Stockholm1850, Handelsbalken Ch. 11 section 24, Motiv (Reasons), pp. 34, 44.
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